


Reign O'er Me

by JaeNunyah



Category: The Who
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 10:06:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22968193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaeNunyah/pseuds/JaeNunyah
Summary: Current-age Townshend and Daltrey take in a very old home movie.
Kudos: 2





	Reign O'er Me

**Author's Note:**

> Rated "E" for vile content, but specific warning would spoil nasty surprise. Tread carefully, and please forgive me. Documentary AMAZING JOURNEY showed old Monkey discussing getting temporarily sacked for presumptuous transgression, practically trembling with PTSD-esque terror to proclaim "I would never, EVER do ANYthing like that again.", and I couldn't help but wonder what they did to punish him. Here's where my dirty mind went...

"Hey, that was ME." Monkey exclaims in surprise, having caught only the briefest glimpse before Pete had clicked quickly to a screen filled with innocuous print. "What were you just watching?"

[Damn, my hearing is shot to shit. How did I not know he was behind me?] "Nothing YOU want to see, I promise." Striving for an arch leer, Pete is well aware his response betrays trace of evasive embarassment.

Monkey smells blood, and seizes this rare opportunity to taunt. "Why'd you hide it so fast, then, and why do you look so guilty? Are you jerkin' off to ancient High Numbers stuff?"

"I assure you I was not." [Yet, thank God.] "What do you want?"

"Well, NOW I wanna know what you're up to. Go on..." Monkey urges "...call it back. Whatever it was looked REALLY old, cuz I looked REALLY young." Running fingers through his hair, he considers a quip at Pete's expense (something about how he's kept HIS, while Pete's visage has been more forehead than nose for decades), but opts instead to offer one at his own. "Back when I was still wearing tons of that dopey Dippidy-Doo."

Pete chuckles wickedly enough to rattle Monkey's cage. "Oh, you don't wear it for very long." [Why the fuck should I feel awkward about this? He's the one who endures horrid humiliation, here.] "Very well, c'mon and have a seat. I'll start it from the beginning." He shifts over to make room beside him on the sofa, smiling smugly. "I don't think you've ever actually SEEN this before. Who knows, maybe YOU'LL be jerkin' off...or crying...by the end."

Monkey mislikes Pete's insinuating air, but curiosity compels him to sit down, wondering just what awaits. As initial still image of his youthful self blooms into full view, he recognizes the simple, open-throated white tunic he NEVER wore again after that day, remembers kneeling upon the lawn in Keith's back garden and cries aloud in shocked dismay "Did you put this on the fucking INTERNET?"

"Why? Do you think I SHOULD?" [Ah, he hasn't forgotten. Good.]

"God DAMN you, Pete, who all has seen this?" Monkey snarls, fearing the answer but needing... "The TRUTH."

"Hmmm, let me think..." Pete pretends to count on his fingers, ticking off "Ronnie and his wife...Keith's mother-in-law but NOT ever his wife...my wives...YOUR wife..."

"WHAT? Are you KIDDING me?" interrrupts Monkey, mortified.

Pete offers inscrutably mocking grin. "Suppose you'll have to ask her, won't you?"

"Yeah RIGHT...How would THAT conversation go? 'Hey, honey, did Pete ever show you a filthy film?' I hate you SO much."

"More than you hated me here?" Pete indicates the frozen frame with waggling remote mouse. "Guess you don't want to watch, after all."

The hell of it is, Daltrey does. Loath to admit, he stalls. "Did you ever watch it with Keith and John?"

"Keith, I believe, may well have completely drank it out of memory. Said he wanted me to make him a copy, but then never asked for one." Pete shakes his head with rueful recollection. "And John...Well, he was less enthusiastic about the idea than YOU were, remember?"

*****

"That's disgusting, Pete!" John scowled, folding his arms with a baleful glare.

"That's the POINT, John." Pete patiently proclaimed "It HAS to be something more offensive and transgressive than what HE did, or he'll never learn his place. We CAN'T allow him to persist in the delusion that this is HIS fucking band, now can we?"

"I know he stepped over the line..." John sighed heavily "..and you were right to sack him for it, but I'm not doing THAT."

"I'LL do it!" Keith gleefully trumpeted, capering excitedly like a kid on Christmas morning. "I think it's a GREAT idea, Mum. Finally we're doin' somethin' AYE wanna do. Let's do it RIGHT NOW!"

"Couldn't we just punch him in the face?" Ox suggested "Make him go onstage with two black eyes? That ought to be lesson enough, don'cha think?"

Roger had been keeping wisely silent, allowing disgruntled bandmates to discuss his punishment as if he weren't standing right there, but piped up hopefully at this. "Yeah, okay. I'd rather you all hit me, hard as you want, than..." he shuddered slightly "...that."

"Shut up." Pete's voice was a cold snap. "One more word out of you, and you'll get BOTH." He turned feirce gaze back upon John. "Don't be stubborn. Our talented hands are far more valuable than his foolish face, and I won't risk injury to them. My plan is a magnificently appropriate retribution, and won't hurt him OR us."

Keith offered obscene opinion. "Might even feel good."

"No." John flatly denied "You sick bastards do whatever you want...if he's desperate enough to let you...but I'm voting with my feet. Goodbye." He turned around to stalk away.

"You heard him." Pete stared scornfully down his long nose at abjectly dejected Daltrey. "Goodbye."

"I heard him, too." declared Keith "WE can still do it, right?"

"It has to be ALL of us." Pete inflexibly insisted, regard remaining fixed on Roger. "If John's out of the plan, you're out of the band. Now get out of my sight. You can keep the songs YOU wrote." He scathingly scoffed "Oh, that's RIGHT, there AREN'T any."

"Please, Pete..." Roger couldn't bear banishment "...there's GOT to be another way. I know 'sorry' won't cut it, but I really, truly am, and it'll NEVER happen again."

"You're begging the wrong man. Go change John's mind, if you're so sorry."

"I can convince him." Keith giggled as he started off after departing Ox. "Back in a tick. Don't start without us."

"Keefy, STAY." Pete barked sharply, softening expression and tone to reach out for affectionate muss of Moonie's hair. "I know you could, but that wouldn't impose poetic justice."

"What am I supposed to SAY?" Roger indignantly importunes.

"That's not my problem." Pete icily imparts "Come back with John on board, or walk the fucking plank."

Roger knew he had no other choice, and hurried to catch up with John beside open driver's-side door of the big bassist's battered Bentley. 

"Need a ride?" Ox asked quietly as Roger approached his car.

"He says if you come back I don't have to leave." Daltrey diffidently muttered. 

"Did he dream up something different?"

"No." Roger forced himself to meet John's extant expression. "You KNOW how he can be. He'll die on this fucking hill, and he doesn't care if that means the band dies, too."

"The band won't die without you." John growled "And you won't die without us. Plenty of groups would be glad to kick their singer out for you. Maybe we can even arrange a trade, somehow."

"It's not like you to be cruel."

"Wasn't trying to be. Sorry if it sounded that way, but you just said so, yourself. It's over."

Roger despised Pete for putting them both in this icky position, but... "Couldn't you just...y'know..." he felt himself blushing "...go along to get along?"

"You're REALLY okay with Pete's perverted plan?" Ox snorted, affronted.

"Well, I don't WANT it, obviously..." Roger scuffed his shoes in the gravel of the driveway and crammed both fists anxiously into his jacket pockets "...any more than you do, but staying sacked would be worse."

"Rog..." John wearily warned "If he gets his way here, who knows what he'll try next time?"

"There won't be a next time." Daltrey decided "I've learned my lesson, and I think he knows that, he just has to have a big, nasty display of dominance. He wouldn't DO anything like this to you or Keith because he NEEDS both of you. I'm expendable, and have to prove I'm committed."

"You should BE committed for accepting such crazy crap." John solemnly stated with a sigh "This whole fucking band needs our collective head examined, but if it means that much to you I guess I can't be cruel...or stubborn." He slammed the Bentley's door closed with grumpy resignation. "Fine, I'm in. Let's get this over with."

*****

"How DID you convince him, anyway?" Pete asks archly, aching to press Play but unwilling to do so until explicitly requested. "He told me to go to Hell when I asked HIM what you said."

"Well, then, that's what AYE say, too." Monkey defies, decding that if John could take it to the grave, so will he. "Go to Hell, Pete."

"You WILL tell me, or I'll drop it on MeToob and Fakebook right now. Bet it'll have a million hits by morning." [Read THOSE comments, bitch.]

Monkey knows Pete's not bluffing. "We agreed you're a dirty-minded psycho-derelict, but that your way was better than the highway."

"All right." Pete allows with air of disdain. "I won't make you watch it and relive the trauma." 

[Fuck, he knows I want to. Better bite the bullet.] "No, go ahead..." He adds final word before it's demanded "...please."

Triumphant, Pete clicks to begin, saying "I knew YOU wouldn't balk, but was worried right up until action commenced that John might call a halt any minute."

[Onscreen, focus narrows from full-body shot of young Roger kneeling on the grass with Keith and John standing beside him (Keith eagerly fidgeting and John looking stoically grim) to a tight shot of his face, and Pete's voice is heard from behind the camera.

"Okay, we're rolling. Give us your prettiest apology."

Roger's expression is properly, sincerely penitent, although tinged with terror as he speaks into the lens. 

"I'm the one who ruined our set by storming offstage, and I had no right to flush the drugs. I promise to never, EVER touch anything that doesn't belong to me again, or to tell Pete, John and Keith how to do their jobs. I know I'm the weakest link, and I'm very sorry for my unseemly temper tantrum. This is my penance for arrogant stupidity, and I deserve it. Please forgive me."

Focus pans back out to once more include John and Keith in frame, and Pete walks into the shot to take position between them, standing behind Roger's head, uttering "Let's forgive him, fellows." as all three lower their zippers in tandem.]

Monkey's unexpectedly nostalgic commentary emerges unbidden, eyes wide open while his filmed ones squeeze tightly shut. "Look how CUTE we were. God, that feels like a lifetime ago."

"It was." Pete dryly observes as onscreen action proceeds to get wet.

"I miss John."

"He sure isn't missing YOU."

[Triple streams surge and splash, rivulets running through Roger's hair to soak into the shoulders of his shirt, dampening and darkening white fabric in spreading stain. Keith's sweet soprano burbles out above the hissing rush. "It's RAIN-ing, it's POUR-ing, the old man is SNORE-ing. Went to bed, bumped his head, couldn't get it up in the MORN-ing!"]

"I was FURIOUS when he started singing." Pete confesses, urging "Look at my face, it shows."

Monkey is glad for the opportunity to look away from his own dripping face, remembering the hot humiliation. "I thought you'd coached him to do it."

"I specifically told him not to say ANYTHING. Knew we'd only get one take, and thought he'd just ruined it by being goofy. Meant to edit it out, but, over the years, that's become my favorite part and I'm delighted anew with each replay that I resisted initial impulse to tinker."

"How often do you watch this?" Monkey can't help but ask.

"Oh, whenever I need a laugh..." [or a kinky wank] "...or whenever you've especially..." Pete pasues suggestively "...pissed me off."

[Flows slacken to dribbles and drips, and John is the first to tuck himself away, proclaiming "You Are Forgiven."

Pete follows suit, zipping up to echo "You Are Forgiven."

Keith's prick has begun to harden in his hand as he shakes off and starts to stroke it. "Maybe we should make him blow us all now?"

Roger's eyes fly open in horror, glistening beads caught in his eyelashes flowing down his cheeks like golden tears. "NO!"

John's low rumble agrees. "NO."

Keith pleadingly whimpers, an adorable puppyish noise directed at Pete, who concurs with comrades' consensus.

"No, Keefy. Those teeth are very sharp at the moment. Never stick your dick in somebody who hates you."

"I'll risk it." Keith chortles cheerfully, whining "Pleeeeze?"

"No." Is Pete's final word on salacious subject.

"Oh-kay..." Keith huffs before his last line. "You Are Forgiven."]

"I was SO scared you were gonna go for that." Monkey admits, watching young Pete walk around to shut off the camera while old Pete clicks to stop the show.

"You would have DONE it if I had, wouldn't you?" 

"Guess we'll never know." Monkey squirms. Now he kind of wants his own copy of illicit episode, but isn't sure he dares request it. "You wouldn't REALLY ever put this out, would you?"

Pete desires to deepen the distress. "It's part of my cache..." he whispers the word again "...cache...of incriminating evidence primed for publication after I die."

Monkey uncomfortably suspects this is no joke. "Are you serious?"

"Perhaps you'd better pray for me to outlive you."


End file.
